Adherents.com: Religious Groups in Literature

34,420 citations from literature (mostly science fiction and fantasy) referring to real churches, religious groups, tribes, etc. [This database is for literary research only. It is not intended as a source of information about religion.]

science fiction - H. G. Wells, continued...

Group

Where

Year

Source

Quote/Notes

science fiction - H. G. Wells

Virginia

1998

Steele, Allen. Chronospace. New York: Ace Books (2001); pg. 309.

"'It may not matter whether I publish a novel or if my son becomes a physicist, because the idea's out there already. So what are you going to do? Go back to 1898 and kill H.G. Wells? You can, if you really want to, but what's to prevent another writer from coming up with the same concept? Or maybe you stop Einstein from developing the theory of relativity. You might, but does that necessarily prevent Stephen Hawking or Kip Thorne or someone else from investigating the same problems?' "

"'Well, the War Department had a name for it--a name they borrowed from H. G. Wells. They called it the Time Machine.' He met de Terry's shocked, bewildered stare calmly. 'A time machine,' he repeated... "

'I'm not fond of fiction, but I felt I should study all fictionalized aliens. Whoever wrote the graffiti has heard about the radio play War of the Worlds. That should give you a clue about who is doing this.' " [It's likely there are other references to this H. G. Wells classic novel. All refs. by name are in DB, but probably allusions are not in DB.]

"Einstein is a teen-ager in Switzerland. Lenin is a young lawyer, his revolutionary days far ahead of him. Franklin Roosevelt is a Groton student, Gandhi a lawyer in Africa, Picasso a youth. Hitler and De Gaulle schoolboys. Queen Victoria still sits on the throne of England. Teddy Roosevelt has yet to charge up San Juan Hill. H. G. Wells has only recently published The Time Machine. "

"Porlock, Groves reflected, should have been named Morlock, after one of the subterranean creatures in The Time Machine. Then he shook his head. Morlocks were machine tenders; they would have had a proper appreciation for the uses of technology, no matter how lamentable their taste in entrees had grown over the millennia. "

"...it is possible that on Mars there are pathogens, organisms which, if transported to the terrestrial environment, might do enormous biological damage--a Martian plague, the twist in the plot of H. G. Wells's War of the Worlds, but in reverse. "

Scientific people know very well that time is only a kind of space. We can move forward and backward in time just as we can move forward and backward in space.

To prove this theory, I invented a machine to travel through time. If you pressed one lever, the machine went back into the past. If you pressed the other lever, the machine glided forward into the future. With this machine, I set out to explore time. "

"One of the most pervasive and entrancing ideas of science fiction is time travel. In The Time Machine, the classic story by H. G. Wells, and in most subsequent renditions, there is a small machine, constructed usually by a solitary scientist in a remote laboratory. One dials the year of interest, steps into the machine, presses a button, and presto, here's the past or the future. "

[Introduction to Zelazny to 'Go Starless in the Night'] "This next one [story] came by a request. It came when Fred Saberhagen was putting together a collection called A Spadeful of Spacetime. The ground rule was that each tale had to provide a novel means of getting at the past--excluding the old Wellsian standby of simple time travel. "

"'It's been written that H. G. Wells attracted women with his breath, which smelled of honey. Then I learned that such breath comes with illness.' " [This is also mentioned pg. 130.]

science fiction - H. G. Wells

world

1997

Burton, Levar. Aftermath. New York: Warner Books (1997); pg. 275.

[Quote on the last page of book.] "'It is possible to believe that all the past is but the beginning of a beginning, and that all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn. It is possible to believe that all the human mind has ever accomplished is but the dream before the awakening.'

--H. G. Wells "

science fiction - H. G. Wells

world

1998

Brin, David. Heaven's Reach. New York: Bantam (1998); pg. 431.

[Author's Afterword] "This is certainly not the fist time an author speculated about the possibility of genetically altering nonsapient animals. Examples include The Island of Dr. Moreau, Planet of the Apes, and the Instrumentality series of Cordwainer Smith. " [Island of Dr. Moreau, by H. G. Wells.]

"Curiously, the villain's bulbous green skull reminded her somewhat of Leech, the young Morlock child currently residing at Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Would Leech look like the Leader when he grew up? Storm hoped that, if nothing else, the orphaned Morlock would acquire a far less sinister mien than the smirking fiend who now stood before them. " [In the X-Men comics, the Morlocks are a group of mutants who lived under the streets of Manhattan. They were named after the Morlocks from H. G. Wells' novel The Time Machine.]

When he'd been young, Lloyd had read H. G. Wells's The Time Machine. And he'd been haunted by it for years. Not by the world of the Eloi and the Morlocks; even as a teenager, he'd recognized that as allegory, a morality play about the class structure of Victorian England. No, the world of A.D. 802,701 had made little impression on him. But Wells's time traveler had made another journey in the book, leaping millions of years ahead to the twilight of the world, when tidal forces had slowed the Earth's spin down so that it always kept the same face toward the sun, bloated and red, a baleful eye upon the horizon, while crab-like things moved slowly along a beach.

"Bill, who had read a great deal of science fiction, could make a dozen theories about any aspect of Gaea. He was partial to the ever-reliable plague mutation: something that came out of nowhere and killed enough builders to leave Gaea in the hands of automatic safety devices.

'She's a derelict, I'll bet on it,' he told them. 'Just like the ship from Heinlein's Orphans in the Sky. A lot of people set out in Gaea thousands of years ago and lost control on the way. The ship's computer put it in orbit around Saturn, shut down the engines, and is still up there keeping the air pumping and waiting for more orders.' "

"Lord knows she'd read enough about strange alien beings with advanced mental abilities. The only problem was, she didn't know what book Seven had dropped her into here. Was this Stranger in a Strange Land or The Puppet Masters? "

"...who got out his Astounding and started to read. The newest Heinlein serial had ended the month before, but stories by Asimov, Robert Moore Williams, del Rey, Hubbard, and Clement were plenty to keep him entertained. "

"We found ourselves, like anthropologists in pursuit of a lost tribe, trying to reconstruct the Martians we'd never met from all available information, even from fiction. One old novel claimed that Martians shared water [Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land]; we knew they shared nothing. "

[In this passage, 'grok', a word introduced by Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, is used.]

FIRST MARTIAN: Grok, brudda. (Hello, fellow Martian.)

SECOND MARTIAN: Grokola, marty-brud. My parsnip is fraughter nor a dead skate's greep, ow you? (Hello, I could use a drink, how about you?)

FIRST MARTIAN: Too wry, nuncle. Not schlepped the old barg-bag since the old snap jived earthside, curd shore use a spew and a pinter pipi. (Right. I haven't dined out since my firl left me, so I could sure use a meal and a beer.)

SECOND MARTIAN: Bow-wow. There is no ankle-grine without some wallop a frigstore ending. Me got brakes, let's scop the joot so snaffle a couple pinters. (Fine. Every stone must have its well. I've got a car, let's ?? the road and grab two beers.) "

[The first time traveller is talking to William Shakespeare.] "'...But what happened centuries after its birth? Let me see if I can find my copy of that variorum edition of The Martian Chronicles. Now you've got me sounding like a Heinlein character.' "

"I left Battelle with some heady visions of future small arms systems, not knowing which ones will see a production line. But one panelist kept us from feeling too cocky. He reminded us that writer Robert Heinlein described many of those concepts years ago in Starship Troopers--but then, Heinlein himself is an Annapolis-trained engineer. That's fitting. "

"'The man on the plane next to me was wearing a hat. So were most of the other people on the flight. Did you ever see The Puppet Masters? The parasites attached themselves to the spinal cord and took over the nervous system,' he said. 'This morning here at work I counted nineteen people wearing hats...' " [Also, pg. 230-231, 248.]

'A fictitious character. Have you ever read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein?'

'No.'

'Mike was a computer that came alive. He--or she, in its persona of Michelle--had a childish sense of humor. Listen, I'd like to talk some more, but this conversation is using a lot system time that's needed right now. I'm going to spool a copy of Heinlein's novel to your terminal. You can read that until I need some more help. Thanks. Don't wander off. Bye.'

The text of the first page of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress filled the monitor. " [The first paragraph from the book follows. More about 'Mike', not in DB.]

"'When I was in college... getting my M.A. in English lit, I had to read a god deal of twentieth century science fiction, of course. Of the greats there were three writers who stood out. The first was Robert Heinlein with his future history. The second, Isaac Asimov with his Foundation epic series. And-- The man I did my paper on. Jack Dowland...'

...'And last year a client of Muse Enterprises, Miss Julie Oxenblut of Kansas City, Kansas asked to be permitted to inspire Robert Heinlein in his future history . . . was it Heinlein you said, Mr. Slade?'

'No,' Slade said, 'it was Jack Dowland, the greatest of the three. Heinlein was great, but I did much research on this, Mr. Manville, and Dowland as greater.' "

science fiction - Heinlein

Washington, D.C.

1998

Steele, Allen. Chronospace. New York: Ace Books (2001); pg. 20.

"Islands in the Sky... a nearby branch library, where he found more sophisticated fare: I, Robot, Double Star [written by Heinlein], Needle in a Timestack, Way Station, and other classics of the genre. "

science fiction - Heinlein

Washington, D.C.

2314

Steele, Allen. Chronospace. New York: Ace Books (2001); pg. 66.

"hadn't this sort of thing happened once before?

Yes, it had. back in 1944, at the height of World War II, when a writer . . . who was it again? Digging at his memory, Murphy absently snapped his fingers. Heinlein? Asimov? Maybe Hal Clement or Jack Williamson . . .?

No. Now he remembered. It was Cleve Cartmell... "

science fiction - Heinlein

world

1970

Tucker, Wilson. The Year of the Quiet Sun. New York: Ace (1970); pg. 4.

"DEDICATION:For the Fifteen and their mates, who are looser because they grok a lot. " [The author here uses the word 'grok,' coined in Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.]

[Introduction to "Guardian of Fireflies "] "When I was eight years old or so I remember being afraid to turn over in bed, lest I fall into some dreaded Other Dimension. This kind of stuff, plus the fiction of Ted Sturgeon and Ray Bradbury, marked me for life.

I know you'll ask, so I'll just say it straight out: I hated Heinlein. Yes. Even the juveniles. "

"Among the most popular or critically acclaimed SF authors of the postwar years I can think of very few who have not wrestled once or twice with the angel of apocalyptic dread, but there are two who were preeminent in that arena. One was Robert Heinlein, whom a majority of fans would unhesitatingly name as the greatest SF writer of the century. Indeed, Heinlein was regularly voted 'best all-time author' in polls of SF readers. His work has compelled the admiration not only of fandom but of critics who deplore his views and lament his influence. " [Much more on Heinlein, pg. 83-87, elsewhere.]; Pg. 178: "Government should not be trusted with such a vital mission, and [Newt] Gingrich explains why in terms of strict Heinleinean orthodoxy: "; Pg. 183: "Not all SF of a military stamp is of the School of Heinlein with its insistence on the evolutionary superiority and inevitability of a warrior ethos. "

"A number of SF writers have commanded their on small legion of true believers: L. Ron Hubbard, most conspicuously, but also Robert Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon, Phil Dick, J. G. Ballard, and Frank Herbert. "

Pg. 6: "My love of films had gone on too many years. It was like having an affair with Kong, who fell on me when I was thirteen; I had never escaped from beneath his heart-beating carcass. "; Pg. 18: Kong; Son of Kong [More, pg. 6-7, 18, 59, 166.]

"...partly embedded in the ground like a robot King Kong after the fall. "

science fiction - King Kong

galaxy

2029

Quick, William T. Planet of the Apes. New York: HarperCollins (2001); pg. 45.

"When he was able to focus again he looked up, expecting to see the alien King Kong coming at him to finish the job, the giant animal, evidently having satisfied himself that Davidson was no longer a threat, had turned his attention toward the rest of the fleeing humans. "

Pg. 52: "Not that she was alone, exactly. Takagi's silent partner, the Son of Kong, was only a couple of yards away... " [Called 'the Son of Kong' in jest because the man is large and physically ape-like.]; Pg. 73: "...wished once again that she knew what had become of King Kong. "

science fiction - King Kong

Italy

1996

Knight, Damon. Humpty Dumpty: An Oval. New York: Tor (1996); pg. 285.

"When we got to the narrow part of the spire we had to climb like Kong, fingers and toes in the stone filigree. "

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